Style Watch: Peacock Accessories

I have been seeing peacock-inspired accessories everywhere of late and I'm pretty excited about it.  I've always been a fan of stuff with peacocks on it, so now I'm able to pull out some of my old stuff and still look trendy.  Like this bag I got somewhere (maybe Target?) a few years back:

Or this bracelet I found at Handpicked a year or two ago:

And of course, the peacock trend is an opportunity for me to snag a few new accessories.  Like this necklace I got at Handpicked just a few weeks ago:

Or these fantastic earrings my sister bought for me on one of our recent shopping sprees:

And I actually have one or two more peacocky things, but I can't wear them all at once!  I've also been seeing a lot of owl stuff which is cute too.  And can I just say that I would love to own every piece of jewelry from the show Pretty Little Liars?  I'm not always a fan of their outfits, but their jewelry is just fabulous!

Gemma was 13 months old...

a couple weeks ago...but I was slack and didn't bother taking a picture or doing any sort of write-up.  Today I decided not to let the entire month go by without taking a "growth" photo so I got her giraffe out and she got into the spirit of things by waving my debit card at the camera.  (I had been cleaning out my wallet and found an old expired debit card; I don't usually let her just play with my credit cards.)  I thought a picture of her waving my card around pretty much summed up life in our house these days:

If you look closely in the picture, you can see two of her brand-new top teeth.  We have had a rough few weeks as Gemma decided to pop out not one, not two, or even three, but four top teeth all at once.  And it seems like she is working on some more.  She got her first two together right at 6 months and hadn't gotten any more since; now it looks as if she's going to get an entire mouthful all at once.  Needless to say, the nights at our house have been less than pleasant of late.  Gemma began sleeping through the night pretty quickly after she was born, and when she did wake up, she would simply eat and then go right back to sleep (usually she would fall asleep while eating).  She has always been a great sleeper, but off and on for the past couple of weeks, she has been waking up and staying awake and crying for hours at a time.  We honestly have never had to deal with this before so it has been kind of difficult.  It seems like everyone else with kids her age is finally getting them to the point where they consistently sleep through the night; ours has done that all along and now she is keeping us up at night.  We are really hoping it is just teeth and that soon things will be back to normal.

She is not walking on her own at all yet, but her favorite thing to do is walk all around the house with one of us holding her arms.  She likes to walk from one person to another, and if you let go, she will take about one step on her own and then just launch herself into the arms of the person waiting to catch her.  Hopefully she will soon be confident enough to try taking a few steps on her own.

She is also still very small, but seems to be healthy.  She is still wearing a mixture of 9 month and 12 month clothes, but she eats everything in sight pretty much all day long, so I am not too worried about her.

And she is way too smart for her own (and my own) good.  The other day she figured out how to open my phone (and it is fairly difficult to open) and started calling my mom and then my mother-in-law.  Coincidence that she sneakily dialed both grandmas?  She is starting to get the hang of putting the right shapes in the right holes on her toys, and if you say anything with the word "berry" in it, she will blow a big raspberry at you!

Higher than Heaven...the Class of 2011

Or at least, that's what the valedictorian of Richmond Senior High school said as she wrapped up her speech.  (She also challenged the graduates: Why reach for the stars, when you can be one?  Pretty thought-provoking stuff, huh?)

Cy took this past Friday off and we loaded up the car and drove to Ellerbe for my sister's high school graduation.  Graduation was Friday at 8 pm at the high school stadium, and boy was it hot and crowded in those bleachers.  Since the ceremony didn't even start until 8 pm, Cy stayed at the house with Gemma while I attended the ceremony with my parents.  My uncle, aunt, and two cousins drove in from Virginia just in time to see Rachel get her diploma.  And like I said, it was hot and crowded.  My parents and I left the house around 7 thinking we would have plenty of time to get a seat.  Not so much.  Fortunately, my parents seem to know everyone in the whole town (not too hard in a town that small), so my mom was able to score us some seats.  Then we sat on the bleachers under a blazing hot setting sun and dripped sweat as we watched the graduates circle the track and take their seats on the field.   At the beginning of the ceremony, they recognized the National Honor Society graduates and Rachel was the first name to be called.  Then we watched her get her diploma.  We were very proud of her. 

After graduation was over, we were starving so we decided to hit up the Sonic Drive-In.  We were in two cars, and right after my parents drove off, Rachel and I were lucky enough to witness a crime: a hit-and-run involving a truck and a fluorescent light.  Two guys driving a big truck apparently didn't realize that their truck did not fit under the drive-thru, so they came blasting through scraping the ceiling and demolished one of the fluorescent lights.  When they realized they were destroying the Sonic Drive-Thru, they slowly backed up, rear-ended another sign, backed into the oncoming traffic, and took off.  It was pretty much the slowest, lamest getaway ever.  Then all the employees came running out yelling and calling the cops, and we decided to leave since it was already like 11:00 and we didn't really want to stay at Sonic all night and be questioned by the cops.  Fun times.

Since we were already exhausted, Gemma decided to wake up at 2:30 am and want to play.  I tried to put her in bed with us hoping just to get her calmed down and back to sleep but this just convinced her it was playtime - she started smacking me in the face and laughing.  Not fun. 

The next day, I helped my mom and sister get ready for a graduation party.  We decorated the church fellowship hall with decorations in green and gold, the Richmond Raider colors.  It was a nice party with some family and friends.

That night, Gemma decided to just scream nonstop for an hour or two as we were going to bed.  She has been getting some more teeth and apparently just really hates her pack and play (don't blame her too much) and was refusing to sleep.  So at 11:00 that night, we loaded her up and drove to Wal-Mart (which was super scary at that hour), then doped her up with some infant ibuprofen and some night-time Orajel and finally got some sleep.  The next morning, Cy and Gemma ended up staying home from church so Gemma could get a good nap.  The graduates were honored again during the church service, and afterward, there was a covered dish dinner for them as well.  Then after that, we loaded up and headed back to Charleston.  We brought the recent high school graduate with us for the week - she is enjoying some relaxing in Charleston before she starts her summer volunteer work at the hospital next week.  And on Friday, she gets to register for classes at CSU.  We are so proud of her, and we are very excited to have her near us at CSU for the next four years!

Memorial Day and other stuff

As you can see, I'm a little bit behind on my posting.  Such is life with a one-year-old.  However, I did want to do a quick recap of our fun Memorial Day weekend.  On Saturday morning, we drove up to Cy's parents' house on Lake Murray.  Wes, Kelly, Noah, and Liam were also there.  We stayed through Sunday afternoon (wanted Monday to rest a bit before getting back to the grind of the week) and had tons of fun swimming in the lake and hanging out with family.  Gemma had fun pushing her cousin Noah around out on the porch (we were pretty impressed at her strength):

On Monday, I requested a picnic in our backyard for Memorial Day/my birthday.  My birthday was Tuesday the 31st and it ended up being sort of like Hanukkah because there was never one "official" celebration, but instead, we spread out the partying over at least eight days.  Cy had given me one of my presents (a skin for my Kindle) the week before my birthday, then we had cake and presents on Saturday at the lake, then a picnic on Monday, then presents on Tuesday (my actual birthday), then a belated present from my parents which showed up on Thursday, followed by a "birthday" lunch at Olive Garden on the Saturday after my birthday.  I was totally okay with celebrating my birthday every day for a week and a half, by the way.

Anyway, the most "official" celebration was our backyard picnic on Memorial Day.  We went to Wal-Mart early Monday morning and bought a "gazebo" (more like a tent) to provide some shade for our completely-devoid-of-trees-backyard. 

I had wanted a cookie cake but had to settle for this rather ghettofabulous graduation sugar cookie cake (it tasted okay though):

Cy wanted brownies so I made a batch using one of my birthday presents, an all-edges brownie pan:

We set up Gemma's water table and fed her some hot dog and partied outside for hours.  It was so much fun!

In other news, we took Gemma to the doctor yesterday for a weight check since she was underweight at her 12 month checkup.  Her weight was pretty much exactly the same as last month (16 pounds, 4 ounces).  Fortunately, she had not lost any weight.  We talked with the doctor a bit and he didn't seem overly concerned, since she eats extremely well (all day long and everything in sight pretty much) and is otherwise healthy.  I think she is just doomed to be like her dad (I was always underweight as a child too - wish I still had that problem!), but it would make me feel better if she would at least start gaining some weight.  So prayers that she would gain weight and grow and stay healthy would be much appreciated!

We have a big weekend coming up this weekend - we are heading up to Ellerbe for my sister's high school graduation.  Hopefully I will follow up with another blog post detailing the events in a more timely manner than this blog post!